Posts Tagged ‘linkedin’

I was in the middle of a social media training session with the senior team of a client and Mick, who was one of the elder statesmen in the group asked a question.

This brand new world is a scary place for Mick who has been doing his own thing in his own way for a long time and now that day has come. The company believe that they are missing out by not fully embracing technologies that might deliver them business and LinkedIn is the platform they chose for me to run a training session for them.

I’m guessing that Mick and probably some of the other guys have been hoping that this day wouldn’t come but eventually it has arrived and I was the ‘scary monster‘ who was standing up at the top of the room talking about this dreaded LinkedIn, the thing that they feared could possibly render all of their skills, crafted over many years out of date and useless.

His body language, disguised with a little bit of humour screamed “I am choking, please let me out of here!“.

He sat there during the session saying very little.

At the beginning of these sessions I spend a lot of time with the team figuring out what ‘stories‘ they want to tell about their organisation.

“We are an experienced team, we have our own R&D department, our technology is ahead of everything else in the marketplace, how the company came about is very compelling, we work with some of the biggest companies, we are successful, we are expanding, there is a genuine 24/7 service and the culture is very strong.”

This is a company you would want to do business with.

We explored how we could communicate some of these things on an ongoing basis with a combination of blog posts, published posts, company and personal status updates on LinkedIn.

I always stress that you must be clear what your objectives are and the messages that you want to communicate. I talk about developing a ‘message board‘ that is built into the organisation social media strategy for the company and this should be shared with all team members to ensure they understand what the content guidelines are.

Out of the blue Mick popped up with a question: “But what if someone says something wrong?“.

I think he had accepted that it was time to face his fear and now he threw out his real fear that in ways has been fuelled by media reports about damage that has been done to organisations by stupid things being posted by people working there.

What could we possibly do to prevent that from happening?

Ironically he made this comment right in the middle of that part of the training where I am setting the content guidelines with the team.

On the phone, chats with team members, meetings with clients, conversations at conferences… we all have the potential to say something stupid or damaging but we are trained and trusted to do our jobs and represent the places we work for properly.

Social media is no different and you do have to trust your teams but you must give them clear guidelines and explain what is expected of them.

Unfortunately those ‘stupid’ mistakes happen when this is not done and when someone inexperienced (typically when someone is “good” on Facebook) and lacking in knowledge about the organisation is given free rein to post for the organisation. It can also happen when an outside agency is appointed to post on behalf of the company without proper briefing and controls.

Mick, you are right but we will make sure this won’t happen here!

p.s. Mick knows his customers and his organisation better than anyone and will fly once he loses his fear.

That magic piece of paper from a previous boss or the parish priest that says you are a great person and someone who can be trusted to do a good job!

These pieces of paper were little treasures that we kept safe and produced when required on interview day.

Even now whenever any of our team move to pastures new (why anyone would ever leave Fuzion is a mystery to me!) they ask us for a ‘reference‘.

They clearly don’t need it for the job they have just accepted but they might end up using it for the next role they go for. More than likely whenever it will be used it will be at least two years old.

This reference is written in the knowledge that it will only ever be shown privately in very specific circumstances.

For me the ‘real’ references are the recommendations that appear on your LinkedIn profile.

As far back as April 2010, Fortune magazine in an article about LinkedIn were advising that “if you were serious about your career then you should be proactive about getting recommendations“.

These are much more powerful that the traditional ‘reference‘ in my view. This is someone going on record for everyone to see that “Greg is a great fella“. A good recommendation on your LinkedIn profile by a credible person speaks volumes about you as a prospective employee or as service provider.

Furthermore a bank manager, a landlord or a supplier might find such a recommendation just as beneficial.

I get asked a lot by people about how to go about asking for a recommendation. If you have done a great job for a boss or a customer then it’s appropriate to ask and mostly they will be happy to oblige (they must be a LinkedIn user).

Ironically one of the best ways to get a recommendation is to first give one. This is a powerful gesture between you and that person – there is nothing wrong in recommending your boss (a very fair person, who I thrived under, who gave me fantastic direction etc) or a customer (a pleasure to deal with, very professional and fair) .

On LinkedIn once you recommend someone the question is then asked of them “would you like to recommend Greg“.

I must practice what I’ve been preaching and write a few recommendations

I remember a few years back being asked to give some LinkedIn training to the senior team in a large company.

When I was asked to give the training my contact stressed that I wasn’t to mention that it was a popular platform for job hunting and for putting your CV ‘out there‘. Apparently their financial department had recently been poached en masse and they were putting this down to LinkedIn so it was a delicate issue.

I carefully went through my presentation and removed any references to job hunting or it being a platform for hosting your ‘online 3D CV‘.

I duly arrived, started my presentation and just 30 seconds into the session the first question was fired at me “Isn’t LinkedIn just a great place for finding a new job?“!

It was clear I wasn’t going to get away with avoiding the ‘elephant in the room‘.

Personally I see LinkedIn as a lot more than a place for online CV’s.

It has been a fantastic way for me and Fuzion to highlight our services, to make new contacts and great connections and to really drive our visibility. We blog frequently and we push our blog posts on LinkedIn and it helps showcase out team and their expertise.

However I must admit that the ‘CV’ dimension and the increased focus on job adverts combined with the relative ease of finding and targeting possible candidates is starting to have a huge impact on employees and employers. It has had an impact on our business.

Unfortunately I feel it can be detrimental to both employees and employers and if we are not careful this will only get worse.

Temptation..

In the good old days (I started my first proper job in an accountancy office in 1982) we took a job and tended to stay with companies for quite a while. In many cases we worked our way up the ladder through a combination of experience and on the job training.

Generally the senior long serving team members would live and breathe the organisations they worked for and they tended to have a deep practical knowledge of them including the ethos and core beliefs that the places were built on.

When the job stopped interesting and challenging you, when you stopped learning or when the career progression stopped then it was a natural time to start looking for a new job.

At this moment you started flicking through the job pages in the newspaper on a Friday and you might even register yourself with an employment agency. It was a very considered process.

Now things have changed significantly ..every single day anyone with a LinkedIn profile (there are over 1.4 million people in Ireland) can receive a job enquiry, a little temptation is dangled in front of them and long before they have even considered looking for another job their head has been turned and they are unsettled.

Two of our team left in the recent past and the story was the same for both of them “You know me, I love it here. I wasn’t even looking but they contacted me and the offer was so good I couldn’t resist“.

While this is a detrimental issue for employers who now have to contend with much higher staff turnover it is even more detrimental for the individuals who are letting their heads be easily turned.

Before their full skill-sets are developed and they have a chance to grow in their roles they are off and starting again, never reaching their full potential anywhere.

Technology has clearly changed all of our lives and in the workplace these changes are very significant.

Avoiding temptation..

This new temptation is detrimental to everyone and we need to take a little control back to limit how detrimental it is.

For the individuals that are tempted have a really good think before you allow your head to be turned – is this temptation really the best thing right now for your development and your long term career?

For employers who are tempted – do you really want to take someone on who has their head turned that easy? This won’t be the last time their head will turn!

Apparently I’m someone who is interested in Adult Fantasy Games, the odd bet and I wouldn’t mind driving the new Volvo V40.

I’d like to go on holidays to Tuscany after needing the help of a Retail Consultant and playing some more adult fantasy games!

When I get serious I’m interested in ERP (excuse my ignorance but I have no idea what that is) for small business, a white board device for waking up ideas and I might even like to earn some extra money.

When I’m done with all of that I might like to find a new file sharing platform while I take on my one year diploma course in Corporate Governance with DCU.

Finally I might be interested in switching to UPC.

Interesting person!!

Social Media Advertising

This is a sample of the advertising that is being targeted at me across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

With all of the different social media platforms it is possible to do some very specific targeting with your advertising campaigns.

Facebook – this probably has the biggest targeting capability as it can focus on your location (as precise as towns), age, personal status and declared personal interests.

For the advertiser it works on either a pay per click basis (you only pay when someone clicks your advert) or on impressions (the number of times your advert has been shown).

You set a daily budget and you also have the capability of setting a maximum amount per click. The big limitation with Facebook advertising is that most people are in a very social frame of mind when they are using the platform so it probably isn’t great for “heavy” topics.

With Facebook you can also enjoy an element of what I call “endorsed” or “trust” advertising – where you see an advert and it declares that one of your friends likes that brand/product. If you want extra oomph from your page posts you can invest a few bob to push them out to the people who have liked your pages and their friends.

We have found it to be quite effective for many of our clients.

LinkedIn – the targeting capability for advertisers is really good here with options around location (just country so far), age, seniority, the size of the company the person works for, job role, sector and you can even target Groups that have been set up. This also operates on a pay per click basis (these are quite expensive) – you set the maximum per click and a daily budget.

I haven’t used it yet for clients but I have experimented with it for Fuzion – we have won some business as a result.

Twitter – advertising on twitter is still in it’s infancy and my feeling is that targeting will be more difficult because a user provides limited information when they set up their account. However if you read the blurb twitter reckon you can target by gender, geography and special interests (it must track the content of your tweets or maybe who you are following to assess this – it might be tricky to target the huge number of users on twitter who lurk and never tweet). You have a choice between promoting your account or pushing your tweets into peoples twitter feed).

We haven’t used twitter advertising for any clients yet.

Collectively across all platforms there is a lot of information and capability that can help you target customers – the skill is knowing who your customer might be and using the targeting tools to attract their attention.

For the record when it comes to me other than a trip to Tuscany (off there next week!), Facebook marketing and pulling my hair out with Sky last Christmas the world just doesn’t know me at all.

I definitely have no interest in adult fantasy games… (al least that what I keep telling everyone!)

I was in the middle of a social media training session with the team from one of our clients and it looks like we stumbled upon an awkward moment!

During these sessions I carefully work with the full team and we determine carefully what the objectives are for their social media activity.

The team had agreed that “raising awareness” for what the organisation does was a big issue and they were going to use social media pro-actively as a vehicle to spread the word.

We were in the middle of a practical session on LinkedIn and we discovered that the person whose account we were using for demonstration purposes had a large number of ignored connection requests.

“But I don’t know them” he said

“Here you have people wanting to connect with you and you are ignoring them” I explained ..”not only are you losing an opportunity to connect and spread the word but you are giving the organisation a bad reputation by ignoring people”

Hmm … The room was silent, he wasn’t budging!

“How about, accept the requests, thank them for connecting and ask them how their business is going ?” ….. “after all, it’s not a marriage proposal” – I was trying my best!

Nope … nothing doing.

I had done enough talking and cajoling for one session so I left it – at the end of the day it is up to each organisation to set a policy for their use of LinkedIn.

The thing with LinkedIn is that people don’t connect with Greg Canty , they connect with Greg Canty, Partner with Fuzion. You and your role in the organisation are locked together as part of your identity.

The team may argue that their LinkedIn presence is their personal space – while this is true they are also wearing the team shirt and should turn up and play for the team.

I just opened my LinkedIn inbox and as always I am delighted to see that there were two invitations sitting there – one from Jim and the other from John. I don’t think I know either of them but that’s not too unusual with connection requests.

For me the big issue isn’t whether I “Accept” or “Ignore” the request but it is what am I going to do with that opportunity that presents itself?

Click, click and I have accepted both these invitations, two more onto my LinkedIn Connections scorecard! – another job well done?

If I do that I have just blown my opportunity to connect ..

If you are serious about using LinkedIn as a platform for boosting awareness and generating meaningful connections then you need to start using the opportunity properly.

There is lots that you can do on LinkedIn but the first way that you can really start making a difference is by “saying something” when someone connects with you.

How about after you hit that accept button you send a simple message… “Thanks for connecting, how is business with you?”

I always thank whoever has gone to the bother of connecting with me and I always ask them some sort of question. I find 99% of the time they come back with a response and before you know it, you are actually building a “connection” – do this right and you get to learn something about them and you get a chance to tell them something about you and your business.

Last week I connected with over 100 new contacts that I had on my email database that were using LinkedIn – nearly everyone accepted the connection request.

Just one took the time to say something.

Are you collecting numbers or making connections?

Go on.. say something

(for those readers that are not using LinkedIn it is a great way to make connections and generate awareness for you and your business – jump in!)

Over the last few days you may have noticed a message from LinkedIn advising that your “tweets” will no longer appear automatically as status updates on LinkedIn.

If you didn’t have this feature switched on it obviously makes no difference to you but if you did you need to consider how this affects your social media activity.

Twitter to LinkedIn

I’m not sure what is behind this change but I am suspecting that LinkedIn may want you to post directly from their platform – at least this way you will have to open up your LinkedIn dashboard to make a post and hopefully (for them) notice some adverts that are of interest to you. Clicking these makes them money by the way!

The big problem that I see here is that most people do not consume their social media from LinkedIn – yep, we connect, search for contacts but very very few of us are actually consuming – am I wrong? Is this their effort to make themselves part of the conversation and more relevant?

LinkedIn to Twitter

You can see from the graphic above that it is still possible to push your LinkedIn posts to Twitter once you click the little twitter box at the bottom of the post.

Twitter to Facebook

Another recent development I have noticed is that my Twitter posts are no longer being pushed to Facebook despite all the connections being switched on. I have disconnected and refreshed the connection but it has made no difference.

I am starting to think that Facebook like LinkedIn want the user to log on directly to their platform to post updates, again in the hope that you will spot some adverts and make them a few bob!

Facebook to Twitter

I’m not sure if it is a coincidence but in line with this lapse in functionality Facebook are promoting their auto posts to Twitter feature quite actively when you log on. Hmmm ..

Automation isn’t always good ..

Consequence?

So what does all of this mean to the heavy social media user who is quite active on all platforms and was enjoying the benefit of these time saving applications. Effectively you could post once on Twitter and this post would replicate on both Facebook and LinkedIn. This is what I was doing myself.

Maybe it’s a good thing?

I think you should embrace the change and treat it as a good thing.

Auto posts from Twitter were never the best idea for a number of reasons:

You can allow yourself to post more often and repeat posts on Twitter (this frequency could come across as “spam” on Facebook and LinkedIn)

If you have posts of a visual nature you are better going to Facebook and posting there directly – when you post from Twitter any link was just appearing as a link.

The platforms are quite different and while auto-post can be ok most of the time, often your “tweet” may be inappropriate on LinkedIn and maybe on Facebook

I find that if you use the “auto-post” feature you actually start to miss some of the action on the other platforms – they all do a different job for you, don’t forget that.

Users of LinkedIn and Facebook may not get all of the @gregcantyfuzion and the hash tag #FF, #Positivity “stuff” and can find it quite annoying and distracting from the actual message

My best advice is to treat each of the social media platforms differently, post separately as appropriate and for ultimate control use tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite as time saving devices. Using these you can select the destination for each of your updates (be it to any of your twitter accounts, your facebook personal or business pages).

The schedule facility on these platforms is an extra bonus, which can also be very handy.

LinkedIn

Regarding LinkedIn status updates I don’t see the change making the platform more relevant – If anything it could actually have the opposite effect!

If you wish to make an impact here try:

Participating in discussions on Groups you have joined

Start discussions in Groups you have joined

Start Asking and Answering Questions that have been posted for your industry sector/area of expertise

But I don’t have the time .. (this must be the one thing I hear most from people about social media)

Heh, that’s not my problem …if you have figured out that social media is good for your business then you’ll make the time!

My poor laptop was starting to fall apart, left mouse button a bit wobbly, battery life of about 2 minutes and a regular dose of crashing and ctrl alt deleting required ..

I just wasn’t up to the trauma of changing, mail system not working, transfer of files and program’s, a few days of frustration …. too busy for all of that!

In the end I was forced to bite the bullet so I rang my buddy Sean Ware from TSG who gave me a really good price on a well spec’d machine and promised to do a painless changeover.

Hmmmm … I wasn’t convinced, it never works out that way!

To be fair to Sean he had convinced us earlier in the year to move to Google Apps for our email service, which not only protected our emails but also made and changeover a lot easier.

A few days after ordering Sean arrived with the new laptop, software installed and even my email was set up. An hour later we were 100% up and running after transferring files and re-installing a few random pieces of software that I use.

I must hand it to him – the transfer was incredibly painless.

I paid him and sincerely thanked him for the great service.

Going out the door Sean winked at me and suggested that if I was really happy with the service I might “tweet” out that I was happy. To be honest he didn’t need to suggest it as I would have done it in any case! I was more than happy to oblige of course.

“Live” Testimonials

This is where social media is absolutely brilliant – you can capture “live testimonials” for you and your business for all to see.

Word of mouth was always the best form of referral and the traditional face to face method was the only way this really travelled. Now with your Facebook page, Twitter account and LinkedIn presence (of these LinkedIn personal recommendations are the most permanent and powerful) you have an opportunity for anyone that is happy with you and your business to post that positive feedback “live” – what better way to capture that your customers are satisfied with you?

Next time someone tells you that you are great you know what to say to them!

@gregcantyfuzion is following you – Great, that’s another follower and your numbers are building. Who exactly is this guy?

According to his bio he is a partner with a PR & Marketing in Cork and Dublin firm, called Fuzion. If you have any interest in this guy having had a peep at his profile you might follow him back. Why did he follow you and what is the value of the connection- is he just “collecting numbers” for vanity sake?

I try a little test when people connect with me by asking a simple question – “Hi Greg, thanks for connecting, how is everything in your world?”

On Twitter, nine times out of ten I don’t get a response – they are either rude or just in a game of boosting their numbers. Worthwhile connection? – mostly not.

Greg Canty wants to connect with you on LinkedIn – Great, that’s another connection and your numbers are building. Who exactly is this guy?

According to his quite detailed bio I can see what he does, where he works now and where he worked in the past, I see links to his website, his recent comments and his other connections. He looks interesting so you decide to connect with him. Why did he follow you and what is the value of the connection – is he just “collecting numbers” for vanity sake?

I try a little test when people connect with me and ask a simple question – “Hi Greg, thanks for connecting , how is business with you?”

On LinkedIn, nine times out of ten I do get a response – quickly you get a sense of why they wanted to connect with you. Worthwhile connection? – mostly.

These are generalisations but from my own experience the quality of your LinkedIn connections are much better, which says a lot about the platform. This is not to say that Twitter connections are worthless, but many of them seem to have very little depth. On LinkedIn the platform makes you jump a few hoops before it allows you to request a connection, which does preserve the quality to some degree.

You can find a “gem” of a connection on any platform but as with everything else in life if it’s too easy then it probably isn’t worth as much. The real magic starts when you start communicating openly with these connections and get a chance to show them who you are and what you do and vice versa.

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man”

Imagine if JFK had made this famous speech on 20th January, 1961 in his back garden over the fence to his next door neighbour instead of in front of millions around the world – What a waste that would have been!

Imagine having the same audience and wasting the opportunity by delivering a short, boring speech and saying nothing of any significance – What a waste that would have been ..

While social media is still pretty much in its infancy I am amazed how many people are struggling with it – yes, they have jumped in there, have decided it is for them and that it warrants some effort but getting it right in most cases just isn’t happening.

I am seeing two quite contrasting and very common things happening in our work with clients and in our social media training.

The Posters

This crew have found the knack of posting on-line, they are pumping out status updates, clever links, uploading fabulous pictures of new stock or from customer events, sharing videos on Youtube that are relevant to their business. The problem often is that they are devoting a lot of time to posting but to a tiny audience – what a waste.

The Collectors

This very different crew are in a race for numbers, busy accepting connections on LinkedIn, accepting followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook but posting very little – “But, I don’t know what to say?” – what a waste.

The Message and the Audience

If you want to start winning with your social media efforts make sure you spend equal amounts of time and effort creating your worthwhile messages as well as creating an audience for these messages. Be patient, over time you will get better at posting, you will build the size of your audience and you will enjoy success with your efforts.

To achieve Social Media magic I will leave the last word to JFK and I will steal some part of that famous speech that is not as well known: “In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure or our (your!) course”